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  German priest compares Synod to Communist revolution, links it to Fatima message of ‘great apostasy’
Posted by: Stone - 10-08-2023, 07:31 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism - No Replies

NB: What we have been seeing unfold during this Pontificate is the steady and systematic use of the Vatican II 'time bombs' the SSPX used to warn about, found throughout the V-II documents. There are many progressive, quasi-heretical statements in the Vatican II documents that attack the perennial teaching of the Catholic Faith. These statements have been there these many decades but previously not always acted upon and it seems that it is only during this pontificate that they are being rolled out and implemented to their full potential. Pope Francis, without fail, cites these Vatican II passages as the foundation of his encyclicals and actions. Archbishop Lefebvre, in his wisdom, recognized that this Conciliar Church (as they themselves called it) is in a schism. It can be no surprise that a schismatic church falls further and further into the darkest of errors.

Quote:“What could be clearer? We must henceforth obey and be faithful to the Conciliar Church, no longer to the Catholic Church. Right there is our whole problem: we are suspended a divinis by the Conciliar Church, the Conciliar Church, to which we have no wish to belong! That Conciliar Church is a schismatic church because it breaks with the Catholic Church that has always been. It has its new dogmas, its new priesthood, its new institutions, its new worship… The Church that affirms such errors is at once schismatic and heretical. This Conciliar Church is, therefore, not Catholic. To whatever extent Pope, Bishops, priests, or the faithful adhere to this new church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Reflections on his suspension a divinis, July 29, 1976)

It is a breath of fresh air to see and read of more cardinals, bishops, and priests awakening as if from a slumber and realizing the downward spiral the Conciliar Church is in and many are returning to Tradition. The 'conservative' pontificate of Benedict XVI lulled many, including traditionalists, to sleep. It appears that many are awakening and to this Bergoglian nightmare, wherein the explosions of these 'time bombs' are turning the Conciliar church into a globalist version of a religion, a One World Religion. And so, the advice of Archbishop Lefebvre rings ever more true with each passing year, “It is, therefore, a strict duty for every priest wanting to remain Catholic to separate himself from this Conciliar Church for as long as it does not rediscover the tradition of the Church and of the Catholic Faith.” (Abp. Lefebvre, Spiritual Journey, p. 13). 

Let us continue to cling to our Faith, to our Rosaries, and pray much for the continued conversion we have longed hoped for for the Conciliar clergy and the promised Victory of Our Lady, which will happen when all seems lost...


✠ ✠ ✠


German priest compares Synod to Communist revolution, links it to Fatima message of ‘great apostasy’
In the face of this ecclesiastical October Revolution, how could one forget that Mario Luigi Cardinal Ciappi confessed, 'In the Third Secret, among other things, it is predicted that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.'

[Image: New-Planet-by-Konstantin-Yuon-1917.jpg]

New Planet by Konstantin Yuon
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow/DACS 2017

Fr. Frank Unterhalt
Sat Oct 7, 2023
(LifeSiteNews) — Editor’s note: This essay by Fr. Frank Unterhalt was originally published in German on October 4, 2023, on the website of the clerical group “Communio veritatis.” It was translated and reprinted by LifeSiteNews with the permission of Fr. Unterhalt.


The Fraud of the World Synod


“Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the ‘mystery of iniquity’ in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.” [1]

With these words, the Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to the great apostasy clearly foretold by Sacred Scripture, especially in St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Thessalonians (cf. 2 Thess 2:3-12).

Shortly before his death in 2017, Carlo Cardinal Caffarra, the founding president of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Marriage and the Family, referred to a letter from Sister Lucia of Fatima in which she had written the following: “Father, a time will come when the decisive battle between the Kingdom of Christ and Satan will be fought over marriage and the family. And those who will work for the good of the family will experience persecution and tribulation. But fear not, for Our Lady has already crushed his head.”[2]

Carlo Cardinal Caffarra exercised his responsibility before God and for the salvation of souls by standing with the dubia in 2016 against the heresy of the pamphlet Amoris Laetitia.

At present, however, an even greater dimension of the controversy is opening up. In the same place where the pagan “goddess” Pachamama was venerated in the presence of Bergoglio, as he calls himself in the Vatican Yearbook,[3] in sacrilegious and blasphemous acts,[4] the first session of the World Synod begins exactly four years later, on today’s October 4, 2023. Scripture’s judgment on the idolatry of 2019 echoes, “Omnes dii gentium dæmonia (All the gods of the peoples are demons).”[5]

St. Francis of Assisi, whose name and day of commemoration were misused for this neopagan activity, calls with his heroic life the true servants of the Lord to witness that they “stand firm in the Catholic faith, […] observing the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we have firmly promised.”[6] Accordingly, five cardinals have published new dubia in view of the current grave events.

Obviously, a “Synodal Church” is now being implemented, which has already been unmistakably described by the Argentine: “Synodality expresses the essence of the Church, its form, its style, its mission.”[7] Thus, it is a “constitutive dimension of the Church.”[8]

The Catechism, however, teaches the opposite: “Christ instituted an ecclesiastical hierarchy with the mission of feeding the people of God in his name and for this purpose gave it authority. The hierarchy is formed of sacred ministers, bishops, priests, and deacons. Thanks to the sacrament of Orders, bishops and priests act in the exercise of their ministry in the name and person of Christ the Head.” [9] As Cardinal Grech, the secretary of the Synod, tellingly admitted, Bergoglio “provided a vivid and inspiring model of the image of hierarchical authority as an ‘inverted pyramid’.”[10]

In this blatant ecclesiological distortion, the implicit direction of movement is expressed. Up for negotiation is a fundamental constitutional change and a complete paradigm shift. The very structure of the Church and her whole being are up for debate. The synodal preparatory document formulates as its goal: “The path of synodality is directed toward making pastoral decisions based on the living voice of God’s people that best correspond to God’s will.”[11] Behind this euphemism lies nothing less than the intention to comprehensively turn the ecclesial constitution, and with it the Faith, on its head. “Cardinal Grech says that the bishop’s discernment does not consist in checking whether what the people of God say is in accord with what divine revelation teaches, but just the opposite: it consists in taking up what the people say and seeing in it the word of the Holy Spirit.”[12]

The betrayal involved has been emphatically exposed by Gerhard Ludwig Cardinal Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: “They want to abuse this process in order to shift the Catholic Church – and not only in another direction but to the point of destroying the Catholic Church.”[13] In such a procedure, the revealed faith is ultimately replaced by a pseudo-religious ideology that has detached itself from the truth in order to commit itself to the new creed of an endless horizontal “listening” and to create its own doctrine.

Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, twice a signatory of dubia, has aptly classified that process: “We are told that the Church to which we profess to belong, in communion with our predecessors in the faith since the time of the Apostles, as One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, is now to be defined by synodality, a term which has no history in Church teaching and for which there is no meaningful, reasoned definition. ‘Synodality’ and the associated adjective ‘synodal’ have become slogans behind which a revolution is underway to radically change the Church’s self-understanding in accord with a contemporary ideology that denies much of what the Church has always taught and practiced.”[14]

Of course, the synodal process is not really about popular opinion. Just a glance at the numbers proves that. The popular vote is de facto unrepresented in the survey on “Reflection on Synod 2023 on Synodality.” Only tiny minorities took part, whose share in the individual countries is in the vanishingly small range in relation to the respective totality of the Catholics there. In Italy, for example, the figure is less than one percent – in other regions of the world, the proportions were similar.[15]

The preparatory document gives a special touch to the synodal guidance by explicitly wanting to listen to people of other faiths and even [those] without religion.[16]

[The late] George Cardinal Pell, who – innocently accused – had bravely endured the persecution and imprisonment unleashed against him, firmly rejected the working document for the continental stage, which the General Secretariat of the Synod published in October 2022. [He said at that time that] it was “significantly hostile to apostolic tradition and nowhere recognizes the New Testament as the Word of God, a normative for any teaching on faith and morals.” Pell denounced the Synod on Synodality as a “toxic nightmare.”[17]

In fact, the synodal preparatory document, with its inflationary mention of “listening,” aims at a “process” until a “unanimous consensus”[18] is reached. Applying Hegel’s dialectic, “it seems to be proposed that the hierarchy should not use its magisterial authority to decide in a controversy but should allow the tension between thesis and antithesis to grow until finally a unanimously decided synthesis is reached.”[19] Moreover, this approach is influenced by the fact that about 25% of the synod participants are non-bishops – in addition to priests, deacons, and religious, also laywomen and laymen with equal voting rights.[20]

As an ideological empty formula, the synodal agitators use the term “inclusion” for their dazzling work, which is not further defined. In a complete distortion of Christ’s missionary mandate, they push the demand that the Church must welcome all people unconditionally without bringing them the true faith or even calling them to conversion. The working document for the continental stage invoked the vision of the Church as an open space of communion, participation, and mission. “Listening,” it said, must be understood as “being open to accepting, starting from the desire for radical inclusion. No one is excluded!”[21]

A disastrous example of this vision was provided in July 2023 by the coordinator of World Youth Day, then-Auxiliary Bishop Aguiar of Lisbon. He ranted that the intention was “not to convert young people to Christ or to the Catholic Church or anything like that.”[22]

In this way, he obviously fulfills an essential requirement of the new Synodal Church, for three days after this statement, he was appointed Cardinal. His statement is entirely in line with the Abu Dhabi document, which Bergoglio sealed with his signature after an intense embrace with the Grand Imam from Cairo. It contains the sum of heresies with the perfidious assertion that the pluralistic diversity of religions is in accordance with the will of God.[23]

In view of the World Synod, a “radical inclusion” is now postulated in all areas of the Church. The offended groups and those who feel excluded are to be included. With suggestive and tendentious “questions” of the Instrumentum laboris, the synodal process is steered in the intended direction. As was to be expected, an important theme here is the de facto abolition of all sexual morality. “Remarried divorcees, people in polygamous marriages, LGBTQ+”[24] must feel accepted and free, it says. The corresponding “question” asks with which concrete steps one wishes to approach them in light of Amoris Laetitia.

With reference to the plea of the Continental Assemblies, one underlines the call to “tackle the issue of women’s participation in leadership, decision-making, mission, and ministries at all levels of the Church with the support of appropriate structures.” The approach asks explicitly how “women could be involved in each of these areas in greater numbers and in new ways.” Hardly surpassable in repugnant insincerity is the promised result of using women to “promote a greater sense of responsibility and transparency and to consolidate trust in the Church.”[25]

In light of this proposed doctrine, the Synodal Church will be concerned with the installation of laymen as leaders of the congregation and with the eradication of celibacy. The evil of an alleged “clericalism” is to be overcome. As a smokescreen for the corresponding process, one once again uses the model of supposed individual cases, which then, of course, opens the door to the factual general situation: “Is it possible, as suggested by some continents, to open a reflection on whether the rules for access to the priesthood for married men can be revised, at least in some areas?”[26]

The renowned American canon lawyer Fr. Gerald E. Murray pulled the mask off the “radical inclusion” described above with an unequivocal analysis. There will be “serious discussion about the abolition of doctrines that conflict with the beliefs and desires of the following: those who live in adulterous second ‘marriages’; men who have two or three or more wives; homosexuals and bisexuals; people who believe they do not have the sex they were born with; women who want to be ordained deacons and priests; lay people who want to have the authority given by God to bishops and priests. […] There is clearly an open revolution taking place in the Church today, an attempt to convince us that accepting heresy and immorality is not sinful, but rather a response to the voice of the Holy Spirit.”[27]

Naturally, Bergoglio has long since shown which answers he wants … to the “questions” of the Instrumentum laboris. He himself had already spoken in favor of promoting civil unions of homosexual partners.[28] The nominations of system-conforming functionaries at the interfaces of the World Synod are clear, marking the agenda and virtually anticipating the outcome. For example, Cardinal Grech, installed as secretary general, “suggested that the Synod could initiate radical changes in Catholic teaching on marriage and sexuality, saying that ‘complicated issues’ such as Communion for the divorced and remarried and the ‘blessing’ of homosexual relationships ‘cannot be understood simply in terms of doctrine.'”[29]

Cardinal Hollerich, commissioned as general rector, replied in an interview when asked how he dealt with the Church’s teaching on the sinfulness of homosexuality, “I think it’s wrong. But I also believe that we are thinking ahead in doctrine here.”[30] Regarding the ordination of women, he was asked if Bergoglio could decide something that contradicted the infallible teaching of St. Pope John Paul II in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. Again, the response was brash: “In the course of time, yes.”[31]

Fr. James Martin, an activist for homosexuality and a Vatican counselor, “said he intends to use his appointment as representative to the upcoming Synod on Synodality in Rome as an opportunity to bring more attention to LGBTQ experiences.”[32] Moreover, his statement that Bergoglio has done “everything possible to appoint ‘gay-friendly’ bishops and cardinals in the Catholic Church is revealing.”[33]

The appointment of Archbishop Fernández of La Plata as the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has attracted particular attention. Now elevated to cardinal, this Argentinean had come to prominence as a priest in the mid-1990s with his book Heal Me with Your Mouth: The Art of Kissing, which he said he had written as a “catechesis for young people.”[34] The writing is characterized by disgusting perversity and can hardly be quoted in numerous places. For example, it says: “So do not ask what happens to my mouth. Kill me on the spot with the next kiss, let me bleed to death completely, she-wolf, give me back peace, without mercy (tucho).”[35]

Fernández has been Bergoglio’s ghostwriter for many years, [and Francis] has always promoted his “foster son.” In 2016, he made him a consultant to the Vatican’s Congregation for Education.[36]

Deeply revealing is the open secret that the kissing expert and new guardian of the faith of the Synodal Church is also the shadow author of the pamphlet Amoris laetitia.[37] Unmasking was his admission at the time that Bergoglio had thereby “changed the discipline of the Church, and irreversibly so.”[38] The pamphlet was published in the Vatican. As a result, Fernández recently described the goal of his current mission: “There is a mission, and it is that I have to make sure (!) that the things that are said are consistent with what Francis taught us. He gave us an insight, a fuller understanding.”[39] One could hardly express the hard rupture more drastically. Accordingly, the standard for the synodal system is no longer the truth revealed in Jesus Christ and entrusted to the constant Magisterium of the Catholic Church but Bergoglio’s teaching.

The whole dimension of the manipulated play on the stage of the past decade is abundantly clear.

In the epilogue of the drama of the usurpatory decade, the top of the Vatican structure now ostentatiously manifests the agenda of destruction with the staging of the extended World Synod. A separate pseudo-ecclesial structure is installed, which is put in the place of the true Church of God and presents us as a “new gospel,” a religious delusion of lies, against whose pernicious deception the Catechism has urgently warned in the passage quoted at the beginning.

In the face of this ecclesiastical October Revolution, how could one forget the famous word that Mario Luigi Cardinal Ciappi, the theologian of the papal household for decades and a proven expert on the Message of Fatima, left behind in 1995? In a letter, he confessed, “In the Third Secret, among other things, it is predicted that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.”[40]

October 4, 2023

St. Francis of Assisi



- Fr. Frank Unterhalt


NOTES

[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 675.
[2] Diane Montagna, “Timeline of events reveals plot to destroy legacy of JPII Institute,” in LifeSiteNews, August 20, 2019.
[3] Cf. Guido Horst, “Es war einmal ein ‚Stellvertreter Christi‘,'” in Die Tagespost, April 2, 2020; cf. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, “‘Du sagst es,'” in Katholisches.info, April 4, 2020.
[4] Cf. Contra Recentia Sacrilegia, November 9, 2019, in Rorate Cæli, https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2019/1...legia.html.
[5] Vulgate, Psalm 95(96),5.
[6] Francis of Assisi, Bullierte Regel, 12th chap., 4, in: Franziskus-Quellen, Kevelaer 2009, p. 102.
[7] Address to the faithful of the Diocese of Rome, September 18, 2021.
[8] Address for the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Synod of Bishops, October 17, 2015.
[9] Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 179.
[10] Cardinal Grech, Address to the Bishops of Ireland on Synodality, February 3, 2021, in Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, “Address of Cardinal Mario Grech to the Bishops of Ireland on Synodality,” March 4, 2021.
[11] Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops (ed.), For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission. Vademecum for the Synod on Synodality, September 2021, p. 8.
[12] Julio Loredo, José Antonio Ureta, Eine Büchse der Pandora, Frankfurt 2023, p. 33.
[13] Raymond Arroyo, “Cardinal Müller on Synod on Synodality: ‘A Hostile Takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ … We Must Resist,'” in National Catholic Register, October 7, 2022.
[14] Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, Preface, June 16, 2023, in Julio Loredo, José Antonio Ureta, op. cit. p. 7.
[15] Cf. Benedikt Heider, “Weltsynode: So sortiert das Synodenteam die Rückmeldungen,” in katholisch.de, August 29, 2022; cf. Luke Coppen, “How Many People Took Part in the Synod’s Diocesan Phase?” in The Pillar, July 29, 2022.
[16] Cf. Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, op. cit. p. 12-13.
[17] Damian Thompson, “The Catholic Church must free itself from this ‘toxic nightmare,'” in The Spectator, January 11, 2023.
[18] Cf. Preparatory Document For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission, p. 11, n. 14.
[19] Julio Loredo, José Antonio Ureta, p. 61.
[20] See Christine Seuss, “Synode zur Synodalität: Erstmals Frauenquote im Vatikan,” in Vatican News, April 26, 2023.
[21] Secretaria Generalis Synodi, working document for the continental stage “‘Make wide the room of your tent’ (Is 54:2),” 24 October 2022, p. 6, n. 11.
[22] Jonathan Liedl, “A First for World Youth Day: Interreligious Dialogue a Focal Point in Lisbon,” in National Catholic Register, July 17, 2023.
[23] See Dr. Maike Hickson, “Pope asks universities to disseminate his claim ‘diversity of religions’ is ‘willed by God,'” in LifeSiteNews, March 25, 2019.
[24] XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Instrumentum laboris for the First Session, B 1.2, pp. 32-33.
[25] Ibid, B 2.3, p. 49.
[26] Ibid, B 2.4, p. 53.
[27] Fr. Gerald E. Murray, “A Self-Destructive Synod,” in The Catholic Thing, October 31, 2022.
[28] Cf. Giuseppe Nardi, “Papst-Vertrauter Fernández: ‚Homo-Ehe? Papst Franziskus hatte immer diese Meinung‘” in Katholisches.info, October 24, 2020.
[29] Raymond Wolfe, “Cardinal Müller says Pope Francis’ Synod is a ‘hostile takeover of the Church’ in explosive interview,” in LifeSiteNews, October 7, 2022.
[30] Ludwig Ring-Eifel, “Kardinal Hollerich spricht über Reformen und Woelki,” in Domradio.de, February 2, 2022.
[31] Luka Tripalo, “Generalni Relator Biskupske Sinode Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich Duh Sveti ponekad uzrokuje veliku pomutnju kako bi donio nov sklad,” in Glas Koncila, March 27, 2023.
[32] Claire Giangravé, “Father James Martin hopes to bring LGBTQ voices to the synod,” in America. The Jesuit Review, July 11, 2023.
[33] Dorothy Cummings McLean, “Fr. James Martin: Pope appoints ‘gay-friendly’ bishops, cardinals to change Church on LGBT,” in LifeSiteNews, November 7, 2018.
[34] Hannah Brockhaus, “Erzbischof Fernández verteidigt umstrittenes Buch über das Küssen als Jugendkatechese,” in CNA Deutsch, July 5, 2023.
[35] Víctor Manuel Fernández, “Sáname con tu boca. El arte de besar,” Buenos Aires 1995, p. 44: “Por eso, no preguntes qué le pasa a mi boca. Matáe de una vez con el próximo beso, desangráme del todo, loba, devolvéme la paz sin piedad (Tucho).”
[36] Cf. Giuseppe Nardi, op. cit.
[37] Cf. Settimo Cielo/Giuseppe Nardi, “‚Amoris laetitia‘ und sein Schattenautor Victor Manuel Fernández,” in Katholisches.info, May 25, 2016.
[38] Giuseppe Nardi, “Papst-Vertrauter Fernández: ‚Homo-Ehe? Papst Franziskus hatte immer diese Meinung‘” op. cit.
[39] Hubert Hecker, “Msgr. Fernández im Widerspruch zur Wahrheit und Lehrtradition der Kirche,” in Katholisches.info, August 31, 2023.
[40] Fr. Brian W. Harrison, “Alice von Hildebrand Sheds New Light on Fatima,” Introductory commentary, in OnePeterFive, May 12, 2016.

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  St. Alphonsus Liguori: Daily Meditations for Nineteenth Week after Pentecost
Posted by: Stone - 10-08-2023, 06:45 AM - Forum: Pentecost - Replies (6)

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F-Qx...ipo=images]

Morning Meditation

THE GREAT FAITH OF ST. TERESA AND HER DEVOTION TOWARDS THE BLESSED SACRAMENT


St. Teresa received from God the gift of Faith in so full a measure that she has written in her Life: "The devil never had power to tempt me in any way against the Faith. It even seemed to me that the more impossible, naturally speaking, a truth of Faith was, the more firmly did I believe it, and the more difficult of belief, the more did it inspire me with devotion."


I.

St. Teresa received from God the gift of Faith in so full of measure that she has written in her Life: "The devil never had power to tempt me in any way against the Faith. It even seemed to me that the more impossible, naturally speaking, a truth of Faith was, the more firmly did I believe it, and the more difficult of belief, the more did it inspire me with devotion."

One day she was told she might be denounced to the Holy Office as a heretic. "This made me smile," she writes, "knowing so well that for the things of holy Faith, or for the least of the ceremonies of the Church, I would give my life a thousand times."

This love for the Faith gave her the fortitude, when but seven years of age, to set out from her father's house with her little brother, to go amongst the Moors, in order that she might sacrifice her life for the Faith. Later on in life, such was her conviction of the truth of our Faith, that she felt as if she could convince all the Lutherans and bring them to an acknowledgment of their errors.

In a word, the satisfaction she experienced at seeing herself among the number of the children of the Church was such, that at the hour of her death she could not often enough repeat to herself these words: "After all, I am a child of the Holy Church! After all, I am a child of the Holy Church!"

Let the fruit of this consideration be that of continual thanksgiving, in union with the Saint, to the Lord, for having bestowed upon us the great gift of the Faith, in making us children of the Holy Church, from which so many millions of souls, perhaps less guilty than ourselves, in the sight of Divine justice, remain separated.

My most loving Jesus, Who, although thou didst foresee my ingratitude, hast never ceased to bestow upon me an abundance of graces, above all, the grace of the Faith -- ah, of Thy mercy enkindle such a flame within my heart, that my daily life may be always conformable to my Faith. O Divine, true and only Lover of my soul, when will the day at length arrive on which I shall begin to love Thee with my whole heart? Oh, would to God that today were this day of happiness for me, the day on which I have, in the present Novena, begun to honour Thy dear spouse and my tender advocate, Teresa! Ah! my Redeemer, by the merits of Thy Blood; by the merits of Mary, Thy most holy Mother and by those of Thy beloved Teresa, grant me, I pray Thee, so burning a love for Thee as may make me continually deplore the sins I have committed, and may urge me, henceforth, to study nothing but Thy good pleasure, in order that I may please Thee only, as Thou dost deserve. Amen.


II.

From the wonderful gift of Faith which the Saint possessed arose the great love she bore towards the Most Holy Sacrament, which is preeminently the Mystery of Faith. She used to say that God has conferred upon us a greater grace in giving us the Holy Eucharist than in becoming man; and so, one of the principal virtues the Saint possessed was her special affection towards Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, as she herself revealed after her death. When the Saint heard someone say he wished he lived at the time Jesus was upon earth, she would smile and say: "And what more do we want, having Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament? Surely, if it was enough, while He was upon earth, to touch His raiment, in order to be healed of infirmities, what will He not do for us now when He is within us in Holy Communion?" "Oh, how sweet it is," she wrote, "to see the Shepherd become a Lamb. He is a Shepherd, because He gives food. He is a Lamb, because He is Himself the food. He is a Shepherd, because He nourishes. He is a Lamb, because He is the nourishment. When, therefore, we pray to Him for our daily bread, we are asking that He, the Shepherd, may be our food and sustenance."

The Divine Lover responded to the love with which this cherished spouse of His desired Him, and with which she disposed herself to receive Him under the sacramental species. As darkness disappears before the sun, so at the moment of Communion the obscurities and troubles of the Saint used to vanish. It then seemed to her that her soul lost all its affections and all its desires, being perfectly united with God and absorbed in Him. Although she was usually pale in consequence of her penances and infirmities, her biographer says, that no sooner had she communicated than her countenance became shining as crystal, ruddy, extremely beautiful, and with such an air of majesty about it, that it was easy to recognize what a Divine Guest she had received into her heart. At those times her virginal body seemed ready to quit the earth, raising itself in the air in the presence of the Sisters.

O Seraphic Saint, who by thy purity and ardent love, were upon earth the delight of thy God -- thou whom He loved so much as one day to tell thee that as Magdalen was His beloved one when He was on earth, so thou wert in the same degree His beloved one now that He is in Heaven -- oh thou dear Saint, whom He treated with such tenderness whether He admonished thee as a Father, or conversed with thee as a Spouse communicating Himself to thee so frequently in Holy Communion and with such abundant outpourings of grace-O Teresa, plead with thy God for me who, alas! am not the object of His delights but the cause of His sufferings by my evil life. Pray to Jesus to pardon me and to give me a new heart, a heart pure and full of Divine love like unto thine own. Amen.


Spiritual Reading

TERESA'S LOVE FOR JESUS IN THE EUCHARIST


The holy mother Teresa never ceased to deplore the injurious treatment that Jesus received in the Sacrament of His love at the hands of heretics. She would complain to God: "Now how, O my Creator, can such tender love as Thine endure that what was instituted with such ardent affection by Thy Son, and the more to please Thee, should be so undervalued that at this day these heretics despise the Most Holy Sacrament? For they rob it of its home by demolishing the Churches. Was it not enough, O my Father, that whilst Jesus lived on earth He had no place to lay His head, without now taking from Him the holy places where He deigns to abide, and whereunto He invites His friends, knowing, as He does, their need of such food for their comfort?"

For twenty-three years she communicated every day, and every time with such fervour and desire, that in order to receive Communion, she would, as she said, willingly have made her way against the spears of a whole army.

One Palm Sunday as she was considering that among all those who at Jerusalem had proclaimed Jesus Christ as the Messias, there was not one to receive Him into his house, she invited Him to come and enter her poor heart, and with this pious thought she went to receive Communion. The affectionate invitation of His beloved was so agreeable to the Divine Spouse, that when she received the Sacred Host it seemed to her that her mouth was filled with warm blood, accompanied with a heavenly sweetness. Then she heard the voice of Jesus saying: "My daughter, it is My will that My Blood should be for your profit: I have shed it in great suffering, and you enjoy it, as you see, with great delights."

With regard, therefore, to this greatest of all gifts that Jesus has bequeathed to us in the Sacrament of the Altar, in leaving Himself, whole and entire, to be our Food, our Companion and our Shepherd, let us practise the excellent instruction that the holy mother once revealed from Heaven to a certain soul: "The inhabitants of Heaven and those of earth should be one and the same in purity and in love: we, in a state of joy; you, in that of suffering. And, what we do in Heaven with the Divine Essence, you ought to do on earth with the Most Holy Sacrament. You will mention this to all my children." Treating of the love and tender devotion that are due to Jesus in the Holy Sacrament, she has again left us in her works the following directions: "Let us act so as not to be at a distance from our Shepherd, nor lose sight of him, because the sheep that keep near their shepherd are always more caressed and better taken care of than others, and because he is always giving them some morsels of his own food. If it happens that the shepherd sleeps, the faithful sheep keeps close beside him, until he awakes, or it will arouse him, and then he lavishes upon it his caresses anew."

St. Philip Neri, that other seraph of love, on seeing Jesus entering his room to be his Viaticum, could not refrain from crying out in a holy transport: "Behold my Love! Behold my Love!" So let us, when we see the King and Spouse of our souls coming to meet us in Holy Communion, cry out and say: Behold my Love! Behold my Love! And we know that God wishes us to give Him this appellation. God is love (1 John iv. 16). He does not wish to be merely called a Lover, but to be Love itself, to make us understand that, as there is no love that does not love, so He, the Divine Goodness, is of His own nature so loving, that He cannot live without loving His creatures.


Evening Meditation

CONFORMITY TO THE WILL OF GOD*

I. EXCELLENCE OF THIS VIRTUE

Our whole perfection consists in loving God Who is in Himself most lovely: Charity is the bond of perfection (Col. iii. 14). But, then, all perfection in the love of God consists in the union of our own with His most holy will. This, indeed, is the principal effect of love, as St. Dionysius the Areopagite observes, "such a union of the wills of those who love as makes them one and the same will." And, therefore, the more united a person is with the Divine will, so much greater will be his love. It is quite true that mortifications, meditations, Communions, and works of charity towards others are pleasing to God. But when is this the case? When they are done in conformity to God's will; for otherwise, not only does He not approve them, but He abominates and punishes them. Take the case of two servants, one of whom labours hard and incessantly all day long, but does everything after his own fashion; while the other may not work as hard, but acts always in obedience to orders. Is it not certain that it is the latter, and not the former, who pleases his master? In what respect can any works of ours tend to the glory of God, where they are not done according to His good pleasure? It is not sacrifices that the Lord desires, says the Prophet to Saul, but obedience to His will: Doth the Lord desire holocausts and victims, and not rather that the voice of the Lord should be obeyed (1 Kings, xv. 22). To refuse to obey is like the crime of idolatry. He who will act according to his own will, and independently of God's, commits a kind of idolatry; since instead of worshipping the Divine will, he, in a certain sense, worships his own.


II.

The greatest glory, then, that we can give to God is the fulfilment of His holy will in everything. This is what our Redeemer, Whose purpose in coming upon earth was the establishment of the glory of God, principally came to teach by His example. See how Jesus addresses His Eternal Father: Sacrifice and oblation, thou wouldst not; but a body thou hast fitted to me ... then said I: Behold, I come -- that I should do thy will, O God (Heb. x. 5). Thou hast refused to accept the victims which mankind have offered Thee. It is Thy will that I should sacrifice to Thee the body which Thou hast given Me; lo, I am ready to perform Thy will! And hence it is that Jesus so often declares He had come upon earth not to fulfil His own, but His Father's will only: I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me (Jo. vi. 38). And on this account Jesus wished that the world might know the love He bore His Father, from the obedience to His will which He manifested in sacrificing Himself upon the Cross for the salvation of mankind; just as He said Himself in the Garden when going forth to meet His enemies who had come to take Him and lead Him away to death: That the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father hath given me commandment, so do I; Arise, let ye go hence! (Jo. xiv. 31). And for this reason, too, He said He would recognize as His very own brother him who acted according to the Divine will: Whosoever shall do the will of my Father, he is my brother (Matt. xii. 50).

*This is a golden treatise that seems rather to have been inspired from Heaven than to have emanated from the human mind. The holy author himself, St. Alphonsus, used often to read it. He constantly practised the wise maxims it contains and always endeavoured to inculcate its practice on others. He was accustomed to say: "The Saints became Saints because they always remained united to the will of God." When the Saint's eyesight began to fail, him, he took care to have this little treatise read to him. -- ED.

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  Israel declares war on Hamas after surprise assault from Gaza
Posted by: Stone - 10-07-2023, 08:38 AM - Forum: Global News - Replies (1)




‘We are at war,’ Netanyahu declares after surprise attack on Israel by Hamas
Israel responded by striking Hamas targets in Gaza following the massive assault early Saturday.

Politico.eu [adapted] | October 7, 2023

Israel was struck by a surprise attack by Hamas early Saturday morning in one of the most serious escalations in years between Israel and the Islamist militant group. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the country was “at war.”

Israel launched retaliatory air strikes on targets in Gaza.

The massive assault by Hamas combined a barrage of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel and dozens of heavily armed gunmen attacking the country’s south from Gaza. At least 22 Israelis have been killed in the attack with more than 250 wounded, Israel’s ambulance service said, according to media reports. The toll was expected to rise.

“We are at war, and we will win,” Netanyahu said in a message to Israelis. “The enemy will pay an unprecedented price.”

The Israel Defense Forces carried out retaliatory strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza. “The IDF is initiating a large-scale operation to defend Israeli civilians against the combined attack launched against Israel by Hamas this morning,” the IDF said in a statement.

IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters that more than 2,200 rockets have been fired into Israel Saturday morning, the Times of Israel reported. Hagari said the Hamas militants infiltrated from land, sea and air.

Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that Hamas “made a grave mistake,” the Associated Press reported. He spoke following a security cabinet meeting at the Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv Saturday.

Pictures and videos on social media suggest that several civilians may have been injured or killed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, at the border with the Gaza Strip. Those images appear to show uniformed Palestinian gunmen opening fire on civilians and civilian vehicles on the streets.

“Hamas … which is behind this attack, will bear the results and responsibility for the events,” the armed forces said in a statement.

Amid reports of widespread infiltration of Hamas fighters, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced he had given the green light for army reservists to be called up for active service. The country’s defense forces are heavily reliant on 465,000 eligible part-time soldiers, and the number called up will depend on how the situation unfolds, Gallant said.

Mohammed Deif, the de facto leader of the Gaza headquartered Hamas group, issued a recorded message prior to the attacks, declaring the start of “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” — a reference to the symbolic mosque that stands on Temple Mount in East Jerusalem.

“Enough is enough,” he said, calling on Palestinians to take up arms against Israel.

Seth Franzman, a regional political analyst in Jerusalem, told POLITICO that he and his family had been “woken up by sirens and rocket fire at around 8 in the morning.” He added: “We could see the explosions from our balcony. My family’s in the shelter now because, even though Israel has advanced air defenses, things can fall out of the sky when they’re intercepted.”

“This is a pretty major surprise attack,” said Franzman, who also works as an editor for The Jerusalem Post, “because there wasn’t the usual back and forth drumbeat between Israel and Hamas that takes place before escalations. This is totally different.”

Saudi Arabia called for an “immediate halt to the escalation of conflict between Palestinians and Israel.” Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said it “is closely following developments in the unprecedented situation between a number of Palestinian factions and the Israeli occupation forces.”

“We recall our repeated warnings of the dangers of the situation exploding as a result of the continued occupation,” the ministry said in a statement. Saudi Arabia reiterated its call for a credible peace process that would lead to a two-state solution.

The EU condemned the attacks. “I unequivocally condemn the attack carried out by Hamas terrorists against Israel,” European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said in a statement. “It is terrorism in its most despicable form.”

“Israel has the right to defend itself against such heinous attacks,” she said.

“This horrific violence must stop immediately. Terrorism and violence solve nothing,” Josep Borrell, the bloc’s top diplomat, said in a statement. “The EU expresses its solidarity with Israel in these difficult moments.”

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  Bishop Schneider: Nobody has the power to judge Francis’ status as pope
Posted by: Stone - 10-07-2023, 08:03 AM - Forum: Sedevacantism - Replies (1)

Bishop Schneider: Nobody has the power to judge Francis’ status as pope
'No one in the Church has the authority to consider or declare an elected and generally accepted pope an invalid pope.'

[Image: Bishop-Athanasius-Schneider-810x500.jpg]

Bishop Athanasius Schneider
Michael Hogan/LifeSiteNews

Oct 3, 2023
(LifeSiteNews - emphasis The Catacombs) –– Bishop Athanasius Schneider has issued the following statement clarifying his position on whether or not he believes Pope Francis is the Pope. His remarks come after Father James Altman announced in a recent video that he believes Francis is not the pope. Altman argues that Francis is not a Catholic, and that a non-Catholic cannot be the Pope of the Catholic Church.

Bishop Schneider argues that even in the case of a “heretical pope,” there is “no-one within the Church to declare him deposed on account of heresy.” His Excellency states that all the teachings of churchmen who have previously written about this subject, including St. Robert Bellarmine, rise only to the level of “an opinion,” as “the perennial papal Magisterium has never taught this as a doctrine.”

The “surer Catholic tradition,” His Excellency continues, is that “in the case of a heretical pope, the members of the Church can avoid him, resist him, refuse to obey him, all of which can be done without requiring a theory or opinion, that says that a heretical pope automatically loses his office or can be deposed consequently.” [Also the opinion and reaction of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in the face of the carnage that occurred under the pontificates of Popes Paul VI and John Paul II. - The Catacombs]

In a statement released just days ago, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò argues that resisting Francis, while laudable, is not enough, and that there is a great need to “get to the root of the question” of what the Church should do in the face of “a pope who presents himself with ostentatious arrogance as inimicus Ecclesiæ.”


On the Power to Judge the Validity of a Pontificate

No one in the Church has the authority to consider or declare an elected and generally accepted pope an invalid pope. It is clear from the constant practice of the Church that even were a papal election invalid, it would de facto be healed through the general acceptance of the newly elected by the overwhelming majority of cardinals and bishops [in the case of the Bergoglian papacy, he has been accepted for the past ten years - The Catacombs].

Even were a pope heretical, he would not automatically lose his office, and there is no one within the Church to declare him deposed on account of heresy. Such actions would approach a kind of a heresy of conciliarism or episcopalism. According to these heresies, there is a body within the Church (ecumenical council, synod, college of cardinals, college of bishops), which can issue a legally binding judgment on the Roman Pontiff.

The theory of the automatic loss of the papacy due to heresy is only an opinion; even St. Robert Bellarmine noted this and did not present it as a teaching of the Magisterium. The perennial papal Magisterium has never taught this as a doctrine. In 1917, when the Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici) came into force, the Church’s Magisterium eliminated from the new legislation a remark of the Decretum Gratiani contained in the old Corpus Iuris Canonici, which stated that a pope who deviates from right doctrine can be deposed. Never in the history of the Church has the Magisterium provided canonical procedures for the deposition of a heretical pope. The Church has no power over the pope formally or juridically. According to surer Catholic tradition, in the case of a heretical pope the members of the Church can avoid him, resist him, and refuse to obey him. All of this can be done without any need for a theory or opinion that a heretical pope automatically loses his office or can be deposed.

Therefore, we must follow the surer way (via tutior) and abstain from defending the mere opinion of theologians, even those of saints like Robert Bellarmine.

The pope cannot commit heresy when he speaks ex cathedra; this is a dogma of faith. In his teaching outside of ex cathedra statements, however, he can make erroneous, ambiguous, or even heretical doctrinal statements. And since the pope is not identical with the entire Church, the Church is stronger than a singular erring or heretical pope. In such a case one should respectfully correct him (avoiding purely human anger and disrespectful language) and resist him as one would resist a bad father of a family. Yet the members of the family could never declare that he has automatically forfeited his fatherhood or been deposed as father. They can correct him, refuse to obey him, separate themselves from him, but they cannot declare him deposed.

Good Catholics know the truth and must proclaim it and offer reparation for the errors of an erring pope. Since the case of a heretical pope is humanly irresolvable, we must, with supernatural faith, implore God’s intervention. For an individual erring pope is not eternal, and the Church is not in our hands but in the hands of Almighty God.

We must hold on to supernatural faith, trust, humility, and a love of the Cross in order to endure such a tremendous and extraordinary trial. These situations are relatively brief in comparison to the Church’s 2000-year history. Therefore, we must not yield to overly human reactions and seemingly easy solutions by declaring the invalidity of a pontificate, but instead be sober and alert, keep a truly supernatural outlook, and trust in divine intervention and the indestructibility of the Catholic Church.

+ Athanasius Schneider

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  Archbishop Viganò: "The metastasis of this “pontificate” originates from the Conciliar Cancer ..."
Posted by: Stone - 10-07-2023, 05:26 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò - No Replies

Archbishop Viganò says what has been repeated many times on this forum - everything Pope Francis does is grounded in the teaching of Vatican II:

Quote:We must take note that the metastasis of this “pontificate” originates from the conciliar cancer, from that Vatican II which created the ideological, doctrinal, and disciplinary bases that inevitably had to lead to this point.

But how many of my confreres, who also recognize the gravity of the current crisis, have the ability to recognize this causal link between the conciliar revolution and its extreme consequences with Bergoglio?


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  Hungary PM Orbán: Brussels Is Creating An Orwellian World In Front Of Our Eyes
Posted by: Stone - 10-06-2023, 05:59 AM - Forum: Socialism & Communism - No Replies

Hungary PM Orbán: Brussels Is Creating An Orwellian World In Front Of Our Eyes

[Image: AP23058434072374_jpg1.jpg?itok=QUMTLQYf]
(AP Photo/Denes Erdos, File)


ZH | OCT 06, 2023
Authored by John Cody via ReMix News,

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán took to platform X to point out what he says is the “Orwellian world” the European Union is creating, including promoting war via a facility meant for peace and attempting to curtail media as a form of freedom.

“Brussels is creating an Orwellian world in front of our eyes. They buy and supply weapons through the #EuropeanPeaceFacility. They want to control the media through the #MediaFreedomAct. We didn’t fight the communists to end up in 1984!” wrote Orban.


Orbán is referring to the European Peace Facility, which is responsible for transferring billions in weapons to Ukrainian forces, a move that Orbán argues has only prolonged the war and cost thousands of Ukrainian lives.

According to the European Peace Facility’s own website (bold text added by original authors),

“On 26 June 2023, the Council adopted a decision to increase the overall financial ceiling of the European Peace Facility (EPF) by €4.061 billion (in current prices, or €3.5 billion in 2018 prices). The overall financial ceiling now totals more than €12 billion (in current prices).

On 20 March 2023, in a joint session gathering EU foreign affairs and defense ministers, the Council agreed on the three-track proposal put forward by the High Representative and Commissioner Breton. This proposal outlines how to urgently provide Ukraine with artillery ammunition, either coming from existing stocks or jointly procured.“

Orbán is referring to specific terms developed by Orwell in his most famous novel, “1984,” which describes how a fictional dystopian regime uses words to mislead the people into accepting the power of the party.

Rumble video: PM Orbán: Sending Tanks To Ukraine Is A Horrible Idea

Orwell wrote in 1984: “The Ministry of Truth… was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 meters into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

A few lines further, Orwell described the different ministries, writing: “The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs.”

Orwell described these terms as “doublethink,” explaining the power of the concept to maintain influence and control:

“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself — that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word —doublethink — involved the use of doublethink.”

Regarding Orbán’s reference to the Media Freedom Act, which was just passed this week in Brussels, the law is expected to directly take on Hungary and Poland’s media markets. Orbán wrote on X that the act is “another anti-freedom proposal from Brussels: establishing total control over the media. We Central Europeans have seen such things in the past. They called it the Kominform and the Reichspressekammer.”

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  Pope Francis’ remarks on faith in ‘Laudate Deum’ are even more alarming than his climate activism
Posted by: Stone - 10-06-2023, 05:48 AM - Forum: Pope Francis - Replies (1)

Pope Francis’ remarks on faith in ‘Laudate Deum’ are even more alarming than his climate activism
Laudate Deum cannot be approached as just another text in which Pope Francis rehashes the clichés of climate alarmism. His strange statements that touch on faith itself are a far more serious problem.

[Image: pope-francis-ap-810x500.jpg]

Pope Francis in conversation with the AP, Jan 24, 2022.
Screenshot

Oct 5, 2023
(LifeSiteNews) — Comments on the Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum will no doubt focus on Pope Francis’ recommendations for safeguarding the “common home”– an expression coined by Gorbachev at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union – in his follow-up to the “ecological” encyclical Laudato si’.

But irrespective of what one might think of the Pope’s interference in an area that does not fall within his duty to strengthen his brothers in the faith, it contains a far more serious problem, precisely on the subject of faith. It is this issue which should be the object of our concern and our supplication to God to put an end to a crisis which seems, at the moment, to be reaching a climactic point in the Church.

READ: Pope Francis calls for obligatory global ‘climate change’ policies in new document ‘Laudate Deum’

Following his many considerations on the “climate crisis,” Pope Francis includes a short chapter on the “spiritual motivations” of his commitment to the planet, writing in paragraph 61:

Quote:I cannot fail in this regard to remind the Catholic faithful of the motivations born of their faith. I encourage my brothers and sisters of other religions to do the same, since we know that authentic faith not only gives strength to the human heart, but also transforms life, transfigures our goals and sheds light on our relationship to others and with creation as a whole.

“Authentic faith,” no less! Let us carefully consider the Pope’s words: He specifically attributes to “brothers and sisters of other religions” an “authentic faith.” But this is absurd. Faith can only be authentic and true if its object is true. Logically, there can only be one “authentic” faith, because it is not just a vague human feeling, but an adequation between the intellect, the soul, what one believes, and reality, divine reality.

READ: Pope Francis advocates for powerful global government not subject to ‘changing political conditions’


Laudate Deum travesties the faith, which is a supernatural virtue

The Pope’s remarks reveal an abysmal ignorance, perhaps even a deliberate misrepresentation, of what faith actually is.

There is a confusion here between the natural and the supernatural. Faith, authentic faith, true faith, is a theological virtue, a supernatural virtue given to us, along with hope and charity, through baptism. It consists in believing the revelation given by God and God alone, in all those truths that man cannot know by the power of reason alone.

Faith is not to be confused with religion, the natural virtue by which man, thanks to reason, can and even is obliged to recognize the existence of a God who transcends him, and to whom he owes adoration and gratitude. Religion can be true or false, depending on its object: the being it worships.

By referring to the “authentic faith” of “brothers and sisters of other religions” – when our spiritual brotherhood derives precisely and solely from the grace received at Baptism, which makes us children of God and therefore brothers in faith – Pope Francis distorts and devalues our Catholic faith. He subjectifies it.

What do we receive in baptism? The grace of being washed of original sin – and for adults receiving baptism, of all personal sin –, divine filiation through incorporation into the Mystical Body of Christ and the ability to become co-heirs with the Son of God, as well as the infusion of the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity, and the indwelling of the Holy Trinity in our souls, which remains as long as we retain sanctifying grace. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God,” St. Paul teaches.

Such is the greatness, the immensity of the gift of faith, such is the specificity of the unfathomable grace received through baptism.

To claim that any believer in just about anything – worshipers of Allah, the Sun or the Great Spaghetti Monster – possesses that living, “authentic” faith that only God freely gives, transcending the limits of our poor wounded nature, is (God help us!) to deny the Catholic faith in its very roots.

With this in mind, Laudate Deum cannot be approached as just another text in which Pope Francis rehashes the clichés of climate alarmism and submits to the preconceived ideas and conclusions of those who preach it.

Preconceptions: There is a climate crisis; man is responsible for it; it is “global.”

Conclusions: Because it is global, it is present everywhere, and it therefore must be combated in every detail of life. This totalitarianism – for it is indeed a totalitarianism – is what justifies all the measures that are being advocated today, from the so-called “moral duty” to ride one’s bike rather than one’s car, or to turn off the lights when leaving the room, on an individual level, to the global taxation of “carbon” and the compliance by all nations with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in order to reduce man’s “ecological footprint” on Mother Earth.

Having stated that to combat the “climate crisis,” “preference should be given to multilateral agreements between States,” the Pope once again makes his the language of the current globalists in paragraph 35 of Laudate Deum

Quote:It is not helpful to confuse multilateralism with a world authority concentrated in one person or in an elite with excessive power: ‘When we talk about the possibility of some form of world authority regulated by law, we need not necessarily think of a personal authority.’ We are speaking above all of ‘more effective world organizations, equipped with the power to provide for the global common good, the elimination of hunger and poverty and the sure [defense] of fundamental human rights.’ The issue is that they must be endowed with real authority, in such a way as to ‘provide for’ the attainment of certain essential goals. In this way, there could come about a multilateralism that is not dependent on changing political conditions or the interests of a certain few, and possesses a stable efficacy.

The aim is to endow global, supranational organizations with “authority,” i.e. binding powers. This is a political program that does not consist in teaching all nations and making them disciples, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” the divine and spiritual mission entrusted to His Church by Our Lord at the moment of His Ascension, but in giving an earth-bound roadmap aimed at the submission of nations to a seemingly natural objective. Here we must keep in mind Chesterton’s warning: “Take away the supernatural, and what remains is the unnatural.”


Laudate Deum personifies the earth

All this is done in the name of the earth: a personified earth, an almost god-like earth. Adopting the language of the ecological religion installed in the climate discourse, Pope Francis speaks of the “cries of protest of the earth” (paragraph 5), the “cry of the earth” theorized by liberation theologian Leonardo Boff in his 1995 book, Ecology and Poverty, Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor.

The entirety of Laudate Deum focuses on this purely natural horizon, seeking to save the planet rather than souls. Jesus warns us: “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” If we fail to focus first on Jesus Christ, there is no point in worrying about (alleged) global warming. People will all die anyway, with or without global warming, and what matters is that they attain eternal salvation.

This also we know: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” This phrase from Our Lord underpins the whole of the Church’s “social doctrine”: it is the key. We must first respect divine law, we must embrace the kingdom of God through the life of grace, we must seek it in all things, and then will the harmony of life on earth, peace (including social peace), which is the tranquility of order, be given to us. It is by seeking God that the Benedictine monks transformed Europe into a garden of Christendom.


Towards pantheism

Sadly, Laudate Deum goes even further, by devaluing the kingdom of God which, as we know, is not of this world. The Apostolic Exhortation – in line with the climate religion which, at rock bottom, is designed to establish a global spirituality to which everyone is supposed to be able to adhere – uses the language of pantheism.

Here are a few examples, with many quotes from Laudato si’:

Quote:§ 25: Contrary to this technocratic paradigm, we say that the world that surrounds us is not an object of exploitation, unbridled use and unlimited ambition. Nor can we claim that nature is a mere ‘setting’ in which we develop our lives and our projects. For ‘we are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it’, and thus ‘we [do] not look at the world from without but from within’…

§ 64: Jesus ‘was able to invite others to be attentive to the beauty that there is in the world because he himself was in constant touch with nature, lending it an attraction full of fondness and wonder.’

Just read the New Testament, and you will find nothing of the sort. Jesus teaches – as He does in chapter 6 of St. Matthew’s Gospel and chapter 12 of St. Luke’s Gospel – that we are worth far more than the wondrous goods of nature, and that our eye must be fixed on that which is supernatural. Our treasure is in heaven, and in that sanctifying grace which places the Holy Trinity itself in the depths of our soul.

Quote:§ 65: Hence, ‘the creatures of this world no longer appear to us under merely natural guise, because the risen One is mysteriously holding them to himself and directing them towards fullness as their end. The very flowers of the field and the birds which his human eyes contemplated and admired are now imbued with his radiant presence’. If ‘the universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely… there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face’…

§ 67: The Judaeo-Christian vision of the cosmos defends the unique and central value of the human being amid the marvelous concert of all God’s creatures, but today we see ourselves forced to realize that it is only possible to sustain a ‘situated anthropocentrism.’ To recognize, in other words, that human life is incomprehensible and unsustainable without other creatures. For ‘as part of the universe… all of us are linked by unseen bonds and together form a kind of universal family, a sublime communion which fills us with a sacred, affectionate and humble respect.’

So, is the Judaeo-Christian vision obsolete? Should it be overturned if not turned upside down? And how can we fail to see here the confusion between nature and grace that lies at the root of the errors conveyed by Laudate Deum?

These are far more serious than the Pope’s declarations on climate and the globalist solution to the “climate crisis,” which – is it necessary to point this out? – have no guarantee of infallibility and are not binding on Catholics.

While on this point it’s possible for us to remain relaxed, Pope Francis’ strange statements that touch on faith itself are shattering. How can a pope say such things?

As a man, he can. As we all are, and only too often, even the Pope can be unfaithful to the mission God has given him. But the Church, as we also know, benefits from God’s promise: The gates of hell shall not prevail (which of course means that they have been striving to bring Her down ever since Christ instituted Her), and Our Lord will remain with Her until the end of time.

Are we shaken? We certainly are. But then the time has come for prayer as never before: prayer for the Pope and for the Church. We can also cry out: “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”, but already we are sure of the answer: “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?”

He is here with His Church, until the end of time.

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  The Demonic Spirit of Assisi vs St. Francis of Assisi
Posted by: Stone - 10-05-2023, 06:26 AM - Forum: Resources Online - No Replies

NB: Please forgive any sedevacantist references. This YouTube channel is sedevacantist but has many good videos on Catholic topics. They also promote and support Fr. Hewko's apostolate, who is not sedevacantist. Fr. Hewko continues the prudent position of Archbishop Lefebvre, summarized here [and see also here]:

"Unlike sedevacantists, we act vis-a-vis the Pope as vis-a-vis the Successor of Peter. We address ourselves to him as such, and we pray as such. The majority of faithful and traditional priests also feel that it is the prudential and wise solution: to recognize that there is a successor on the throne of Peter, and that it is necessary to strongly oppose him, because of the errors he spreads." ("Apres les ralliements sonnera l’heure de vérité," Fideliter 68, March 1989, p. 13).

Also, this video of the Assisi meetings (which began under Pope John Paul II and were continued through to Benedict XVI) is a good reminder that all the post-Conciliar popes have given great scandal, well before the Pachamama of Pope Francis. There is a trend that vilifies Francis exclusively and simultaneously exonerates the other Conciliar popes or white-washes them.



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  Pope Francis calls for international bodies to enforce 'obligatory' policies for the climate
Posted by: Stone - 10-05-2023, 05:18 AM - Forum: Pope Francis - Replies (1)

Pope Francis calls for obligatory global ‘climate change’ policies in new document ‘Laudate Deum
Pope Francis' new document, Laudate Deum, calls for international bodies to enforce 'obligatory' policies to implement measures responding to the 'climate crisis.'

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Pope Francis at the end of Mass, October 4, 2023
Haynes/LifeSiteNews

Oct 4, 2023
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis has published his second document on the topic of “climate change,” condemning “human-induced climate changes” and calling for “obligatory” measures across the globe to address the issue.

There must be “binding forms of energy transition that meet three conditions: that they be efficient, obligatory and readily monitored,” wrote Pope Francis, outlining his hopes for the upcoming COP28 “climate change” conference, which he highlighted as a potentially “historic event.”

The Pope’s text – released October 4, which is the last day of the Vatican-observed season of creation – contains several strong statements warning of the dangers of “climate change,” and decrying those who oppose measures intended to lessen “human-induced climate changes.”

“We are not reacting enough, as the world that welcomes us is crumbling and perhaps approaching a breaking point,” said Pope Francis in the opening lines of his second ecological text – the Apostolic Exhoration Laudate Deum, which comes as a follow up to his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’.

It is addressed to “all people of good will,” and subtitled as being “on the climate crisis.”

The text presents numerous strong claims and statements made by the Pope regarding the climate, as he writes that “it is verifiable that some human-induced climate changes significantly increase the likelihood of more frequent and more intense extreme events.”


Man’s impact on climate

“It is no longer possible to doubt the human – ‘anthropic’ – origin of climate change,” wrote the Pontiff.

Drawing from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Francis stated that “we have confirmed that in the last fifty years the temperature has risen at an unprecedented speed, greater than any time over the past two thousand years.”

READ:
Quote:Renowned climate scientist blasts ‘anti-capitalist’ climate agenda, ‘manufactured’ consensushttps://www.lifesitenews.com/news/renown...consensus/

He claimed that the human effect upon the planet was undeniable: “it is not possible to conceal the correlation of these global climate phenomena and the accelerated increase in greenhouse gas emissions, particularly since the mid-twentieth century.”

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Climate change conferences

Laudate Deum references the varying efficacy of the international “climate change” Conference of Parties events, known as “COP.” Praising some for having “enabled important steps” regarding implementation of climate policies, the Pope also critiqued others as a “failure.”

He praised in particular the 2015 COP event in Paris, which led to the promulgation of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. That meeting “was another significant moment because it produced an agreement that involved everyone,” wrote Francis. “It can be seen as a new beginning, given the failure to meet the targets set in the previous phase.”

In 2022, the Vatican officially joined the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, in a move that was unprecedented on many levels. Pope Francis defended the move, saying that the Holy See had “generously shouldered its grave responsibilities” regarding the “care of creation.” He suggested that “a covenant between human beings and the environment” should underpin the pro-abortion Agreement.

READ: Pope Francis is subverting faith to the all-consuming ideology of ‘climate change’

But even the Paris COP meeting Francis criticized for not being strict enough in its enforcement: “it does not provide for real sanctions and there are no effective tools to ensure compliance. It also provides for forms of flexibility for developing countries.”

Subsequent COP events have evidently displeased the Pope, who bewailed their “imprecise” actions, their disruption due to COVID-19 or the war in Ukraine, and their inability to implement the policies of the Paris Agreement.

He stopped short of preemptively condemning the upcoming COP28 meeting in Dubai later this year, writing that “to say that there is nothing to hope for would be suicidal, for it would mean exposing all humanity, especially the poorest, to the worst impacts of climate change.”


Strong rhetoric against ‘irresponsible’ actions

Summarizing the repeated themes of Laudate Deum, were the Pope’s passages warning against “irresponsible” actions which failed to address climate issues. There was a risk, he said, of “remaining trapped in the mindset of pasting and papering over cracks, while beneath the surface there is a continuing deterioration to which we continue to contribute.”

Quote:To suppose that all problems in the future will be able to be solved by new technical interventions is a form of homicidal pragmatism, like pushing a snowball down a hill.

Once and for all, let us put an end to the irresponsible derision that would present this issue as something purely ecological, ‘green,’ romantic, frequently subject to ridicule by economic interests. Let us finally admit that it is a human and social problem on any number of levels. For this reason, it calls for involvement on the part of all.


Mandatory climate action

In a series of notably strong passages, Pope Francis made a striking call for mandatory policies implementing climate change measures. He argued that every family should “realize” the dangers of “climate change”:

Quote:In conferences on the climate, the actions of groups negatively portrayed as ‘radicalized’ tend to attract attention. But in reality they are filling a space left empty by society as a whole, which ought to exercise a healthy ‘pressure,’ since every family ought to realize that the future of their children is at stake.

Consequently, Francis argued in favor of implementing decisions from the upcoming COP28 in an unprecedented, mandatory manner.

Quote:If there is sincere interest in making COP28 a historic event that honors and ennobles us as human beings, then one can only hope for binding forms of energy transition that meet three conditions: that they be efficient, obligatory and readily monitored.

This, in order to achieve the beginning of a new process marked by three requirements: that it be drastic, intense and count on the commitment of all. That is not what has happened so far, and only a process of this sort can enable international politics to recover its credibility, since only in this concrete manner will it be possible to reduce significantly carbon dioxide levels and to prevent even greater evils over time.

Quoting from his 2020 encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti, Francis called for “more effective world organizations, equipped with the power to provide for the global common good, the elimination of hunger and poverty and the sure defence of fundamental human rights.”

Such groups, he argued, “must be endowed with real authority, in such a way as to ‘provide for’ the attainment of certain essential goals. In this way, there could come about a multilateralism that is not dependent on changing political conditions or the interests of a certain few, and possesses a stable efficacy.”


Climate and globalism

The Pope downplayed arguments that restrictive climate-oriented measures would lead to a negative impact on people’s lives:

Quote:It is often heard also that efforts to mitigate climate change by reducing the use of fossil fuels and developing cleaner energy sources will lead to a reduction in the number of jobs. What is happening is that millions of people are losing their jobs due to different effects of climate change: rising sea levels, droughts and other phenomena affecting the planet have left many people adrift.

Proposing general calls to action which would lead to a direct impact on people’s lives, Francis decried businesses for not acting fast enough on “climate change.” Instead, he called on the business sector to move to “renewable forms of energy, properly managed, as well as efforts to adapt to the damage caused by climate change,” which would be a move “capable of generating countless jobs in different sectors.”

“This demands that politicians and business leaders should even now be concerning themselves with it,” he added, pre-empting his later comments pertaining more to the international sphere of global politics.

On multiple occasions, the Pope’s document took on a particularly globalist tone, arguing for international changes in culture and practice, employing language that was more lofty than precise:

Quote:The old diplomacy, also in crisis, continues to show its importance and necessity. Still, it has not succeeded in generating a model of multilateral diplomacy capable of responding to the new configuration of the world; yet should it be able to reconfigure itself, it must be part of the solution, because the experience of centuries cannot be cast aside either.

He has previously called on global leaders and international bodies such as the U.N. to implement climate policies across the globe, and in Laudate Deum this call was re-issued. “Our world has become so multipolar and at the same time so complex that a different framework for effective cooperation is required.”

“It is a matter of establishing global and effective rules that can permit ‘providing for’ this global safeguarding,” he argued, in a section of the document entitled “the Weakness of International Politics.”

Such a new system of global action against “climate change” would require “the development of a new procedure for decision-making and legitimizing those decisions, since the one put in place several decades ago is not sufficient nor does it appear effective,” wrote Francis. He highlighted the need for “conversation, consultation” and “‘democratization’ in the global context,” so that “caring” for the “rights” of all would be respected.

The Pope also echoed the U.N.’s arguments regarding the United States’ emissions levels, stating that “if we consider that emissions per individual in the United States are about two times greater than those of individuals living in China, and about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries, we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact.”

“As a result, along with indispensable political decisions, we would be making progress along the way to genuine care for one another,” he argued, repeating his call for mandatory climate based polices once again.

Pro-life and family advocates have continually expressed concern over the climate activism movement, as it is often aligned with pro-abortion and population control advocates and lobby groups. Others say much of climate activism is about garnering government grants and exerting statist power.

As already noted on numerous occasions by LifeSiteNews, the Paris Agreement which underpins the majority of current “climate change” action is indeed pro-abortion and connects to the stated U.N. goal of creating a universal right to abortion in line with Goal No. 5.6 of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The goal to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls,” includes the following aim: “Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights,” which is phraseology commonly used to refer to abortion and contraception.

The U.N. aims to have achieved the SDGs by 2030.

The Pope’s previous text, Laudato Si’, led to the birth of a global movement, which links “climate change” activism to the Pope’s words. The Laudato Si’ Movement issues calls to divest from fossil fuels, and aims to “turn Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato Si’ into action for climate and ecological justice.”

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  LFSPN - Catholic Social Teaching and Action for Our Times - Part I
Posted by: Stone - 10-04-2023, 05:49 AM - Forum: LFSPN - No Replies

LFSPN - Catholic Social Teaching and Action for Our Times
by Paul Whitburn
Part I of II
September 2023







For further information and to be updated on future talks please contact info@lfspn.com

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  Please pray for the soul of Mrs. Betty Pfeiffer
Posted by: Stone - 10-03-2023, 12:52 PM - Forum: Appeals for Prayer - No Replies

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Requiem aeternam dona ei Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen.


In your charity, please pray for the soul of Mrs. Betty Pfeiffer who passed away on October 2, 2023. 
Mrs. Pfeiffer is mother to Frs. Timothy and Joseph Pfeiffer. 
Mr. and Mrs. Pfeiffer gave shelter and cared for two traditional priests for many years who were abandoned by the Conciliar church in the 1970's for their adherence to Tradition, Fr. Urban Schneider and Fr. Hannifin.
She is remembered by all who knew her to be a 'true and great lady.'

May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.  Amen.


✠ ✠ ✠


The De Profundis  - Psalm 129

Out of the depths I have cried unto Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice.
Let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.
If Thou, O Lord, shalt mark our iniquities: O Lord, who can abide it?
For with Thee there is mercy: and by reason of Thy law I have waited on Thee, O Lord.
My soul hath waited on His word: my soul hath hoped in the Lord.
From the morning watch even unto night: let Israel hope in the Lord.
For with the Lord there is mercy: and with Him is plenteous redemption.
And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her.

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  Bishop Tissier de Mallerais to give Confirmations in Functioning N.O. Church
Posted by: Stone - 10-03-2023, 10:27 AM - Forum: The New-Conciliar SSPX - Replies (5)

We have heard rumors for a few weeks that Bp. Tissier would be giving the Sacrament of Confirmation in a Novus Ordo Church in Florida. 

If this were true, it would be yet further evidence of the SSPX's ongoing cooperation and alignment with the Conciliar Church, which was brought into the public's view with it's Doctrinal Declaration of 2012 though it was later revealed that the SSPX has been working secretly with the Conciliar Church much earlier through it's association with GREC

Here is the local SSPX church bulletin announcing the upcoming Confirmations for the parishioners of St. Thomas More Chapel in Sanford, FL:. 

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Disturbingly, the All Souls Church on Route 46 in Sanford, FL is a Novus Ordo Church, advertising Masses in English, Spanish, and Latin. Notice that the faithful are not (formally) informed the Confirmations will be in a Novus Ordo church. They are merely given an address. 

What is even more disheartening about this news is that this particular Novus Ordo parish has two churches, an older 'historical' Church, where incidentally the Latin Mass for that chapel is offered, and a newer church built in 2008. The SSPX Confirmations will occur in the new church, with the only altar facing the people. In the side niches flanking the altar there are only plants. Contrasting with that is the older historical church that has large statues of Our Lady and St. Joseph on either side of the altar.  In the older church, there are two altars, one facing the people and one facing the tabernacle, ad orientem

Here is the older, historical church: 

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Here is the new church:

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And oddly, here is the well-sized SSPX Chapel in Sanford, Florida:

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It certainly doesn't appear that the decision to choose a Novus Ordo modern church is one related to size or space! And even if that were the consideration, the traditional SSPX never hesitated to move big events outdoors. The old/traditional SSPX was no stranger to Confirmations in unconventional locations, especially if the local SSPX chapel was too small to accommodate everyone. Here is an older SSPX Regina Caeli Report from June 2001 showing this very same Bishop Tissier giving Confirmations outside in Phoenix as the local SSPX chapel was indeed too small to house everyone.

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This is how the traditional SSPX functioned, giving Sacraments where ever they were needed but without compromising with Conciliar Rome, without abandoning the traditional altar for the modern one, without blurring the lines in the minds of the faithful between the Traditional Latin Mass and the Novus Ordo (see also: The Recusant #60 - Easter 2023) on how the SSPX is moving ever closer to accepting the New Mass). And even prior to this, how could we so easily forget that the 1988 Episcopal Consecrations by Archbishop Lefebvre of the four bishops had to be moved outdoors to accommodate the 10,000 people in attendance.  There WAS NO COMPROMISE with the Conciliar Church under the old SSPX.  

And arguments about the appropriateness (and betrayal) of using a Novus Ordo chapel in the first place aside, how could the SSPX agree to use an altar facing the people when arguable the option of using a traditional altar was available. And if the argument could somehow be made the this parish refused to let the SSPX use the older chapel, then one would have assumed that the SSPX normally would have refused the venue if Bishop Tissier de Mallerais/the SSPX were then being forced to used a modern altar, facing the people.  Two major concessions to modernism in this one event by the SSPX. Most, most unfortunate.

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  Pope signals openness to blessings for gay couples, study of women's ordination
Posted by: Stone - 10-03-2023, 06:40 AM - Forum: Pope Francis - No Replies

Pope signals openness to blessings for gay couples, study of women's ordination

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Pope Francis delivers his homily during an ecumenical prayer vigil in St. Peter's Square Sept. 30,
 ahead of the assembly of the Synod of Bishops. (CNS/Lola Gomez)


Rome — October 2, 2023 (NCR - adapted, emphasis mine)

Pope Francis has expressed openness to Catholic blessings for same-sex couples, under the condition they are not confused with marriage ceremonies for men and women, in what could be a watershed moment for the global Catholic Church.

Francis has also suggested the question of women's ordination to the priesthood, controversially prohibited by Pope John Paul II in 1994, could be open to further study.

"Pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or several people, that do not transmit a mistaken conception of marriage," Francis wrote in a letter dated Sept. 25 and released by the Vatican on Oct. 2.

The pope's words come in response to five retired conservative Catholic cardinals who had written to the pontiff, expressing concerns about a number of hot-button issues that are expected to be discussed at a major Vatican meeting this month, known as the Synod of Bishops.

The pope's eight-page reply to some of his most vociferous critics was offered in response to their questions — formally known as dubia — regarding gay blessings, women's ordination to priesthood, synodality, divine revelation and the nature of forgiveness. The cardinals, apparently frustrated by the pope's reply to them, had made public their original questions earlier in the day on Oct. 2.

While Francis offered a strong defense of the church's longstanding teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman, and must be open to children, he also said that it is important for the church not to "lose pastoral charity, which must be part of all our decisions and attitudes."

Defending what the church teaches to be objective truth, he continued, does not mean that church leaders "become judges who only deny, reject, exclude."

The pope then indicated that discernment is necessary when blessings are requested by same-sex couples, and said any blessings must avoid giving any misunderstanding about what the church teaches about the nature of marriage.

"When you ask for a blessing you are expressing a request for help from God, a prayer to be able to live better, a trust in a father who can help us live better," he wrote.

The pope's latest letter seems to be an abrupt and intentional shift from a March 2021 decree issued by the Vatican's doctrinal office — with the pope's approval — explicitly forbidding priests from blessing same-sex unions, with the justification that God "cannot bless sin."

At the time, the two-page explanation was published in seven languages declaring that Catholic teaching considers marriage to be between a man and a woman — with an aim toward creating new life — and that since gay unions cannot achieve that goal without medical intervention, it is impossible to offer blessings for same-sex couples.

On the question of women's ordination, Francis acknowledged John Paul's 1994 declaration in the apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that the church had "no authority" to ordain women as priests, and John Paul's statement that the teaching must be "definitively held" by all Catholics.

But Francis also said there is not "a clear and authoritative doctrine ... about the exact nature of a 'definitive declaration.' "

"It is not a dogmatic definition, and yet it must be accepted by everyone," the pope summarized. "No one can contradict it publicly and yet it can be an object of study, as in the case of the validity of the ordinations in the Anglican communion."

Francis also cited the Second Vatican Council's teaching of a "priesthood of all believers," and said: "It is not possible to maintain a difference of degree that implies considering the common priesthood of the faithful as something of 'second class' or of lesser value."

Francis likewise said that, in making the 1994 decree, John Paul was "in no way belittling women and giving supreme power to men."

Citing from John Paul's earlier 1988 apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem, Francis said his predecessor "stated that if the priestly function is 'hierarchical,' it should not be understood as a form of domination, but 'is totally ordered to the holiness of the members of Christ.' "

Said Francis: "If this is not understood and the practical consequences of these distinctions are not drawn, it will be difficult to accept that the priesthood is reserved only for men and we will not be able to recognize women's rights or the need for their participation, in various ways, in the leadership of the church."

On the matter of blessing for same-sex couples, Francis said that decisions taken for reasons of pastoral prudence "do not necessarily become a norm."

"Canon law should not and cannot cover everything, and episcopal conferences should not pretend to do so with their documents and varied protocols, because the life of the church runs through many channels in addition to the regulations," said the pope.

Despite the Catholic Church's current prohibition against blessings for same-sex couples, the Catholic bishops of Belgium published guidelines in September that included a prayer and blessing for same-sex unions, while distinguishing them from sacramental marriage.

In March, Catholic bishops in Germany had voted to approve plans for same-sex blessings, and last month several priests in Cologne held a public blessing of gay couples in defiance of their diocese's conservative leader.

Earlier this summer, Francis initiated a major shakeup at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. He appointed a fellow Argentine and longtime theological adviser, new Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, to serve as the office's new leader.

In an interview published soon after his appointment, Fernández signaled that he was open to revisiting the question of gay blessings, as long as they do not cause confusion about the meaning of marriage.

"If a blessing is given in such a way that it does not cause that confusion, it will have to be analyzed and confirmed," Fernández said at the time.

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  Five cardinals write Dubia to Pope Francis on concerns about Synod, Catholic doctrine
Posted by: Stone - 10-02-2023, 07:53 AM - Forum: Pope Francis - Replies (2)

BREAKING: Five cardinals write Dubia to Pope Francis on concerns about Synod, Catholic doctrine
Cardinals Burke, Brandmüller, Sarah, Zen, and Íñiguezto have published a new Dubia to express grave concerns to Pope Francis about the Synod on Synodality and possible attacks on Catholic doctrine.

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Pope Francis delivers a speech on August 4, 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal.
Carlos Almeida - Pool/Getty Images


Oct 2, 2023
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Five prominent cardinals have submitted dubia to Pope Francis about the Synod on Synodality, asking five urgent questions about possible attacks on the Church’s doctrines, including the possibility of homosexual blessings, the weight of teaching afforded to the synod, female ordination, and the necessity of repentance in sacramental Confession.

Broken to the Catholic public on October 2, news of previously private correspondence between five cardinals and Pope Francis, expressing grave concerns about the upcoming Synod on Synodality, was revealed. They highlighted the urgency of the synod as a catalyst for the intervention, noting the synod as an event “which many want to use to deny Catholic doctrine on the very issues which our dubia concern.”

The Dubia have been written and submitted by Cardinals Walter Brandmüller, former prefect of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences; Raymond Leo Burke, former prefect of the Apostolic Signatura; Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, former Archbishop of Guadalajara; Robert Sarah, the former prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; and Joseph Zen, the former bishop of Hong Kong. Both Brandmüller and Burke were signatories of the previous Dubia submitted to the Pope in 2016 about Amoris Laetitia.

Veteran Vatican journalist Sandro Magister wrote that the five cardinals recognized the late Cardinal George Pell “shared these ‘dubia’ and would have been the first to endorse them.”


Background

Magister provided a copy of the letters and a history of the events which led to the correspondence emerging now. (The correspondence is also found on Messa in Latino, on the site of America TFP, and is produced below.)

The five cardinals first wrote to the Pope on July 10, presenting him with five Dubia. This, according to Magister, Pope Francis responded to in writing on July 11, which was received by the cardinals on July 13.

According to Magister, the seven-page letter in Spanish bore Francis’ signature but “the letter displayed the writing style of his trusted theologian, the Argentine Victor Manuel Fernández,” who was made cardinal on September 30 and assumed control of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on September 11.

Since this reply was “vague and elusive” and did not answer the Dubia, the five cardinals wrote again to the Pope on August 21. They rewrote the Dubia so that it could be answered in simple terms of “yes” or “no.”

This time, Pope Francis reportedly made no answer, which led to the five cardinals issuing the Dubia to the Catholic faithful, along with a note addressed to the faithful explaining their actions.

Writing to the Catholic faithful about the Dubia, the cardinals state:

Quote:Given the gravity of the matter of the “dubia,” especially in view of the imminent session of the Synod of Bishops, we judge it our duty to inform you, the faithful (can. 212 § 3), so that you may not be subject to confusion, error, and discouragement but rather may pray for the universal Church and, in particular, the Roman Pontiff, that the Gospel may be taught ever more clearly and followed ever more faithfully.

The five, clear questions of the rewritten Dubia pertain to issues which have surrounded the synodal process and which have also been expanded on by Pope Francis in recent weeks.

The cardinals ask (full text produced below):

  1. Is it possible for the Church today to teach doctrines contrary to those she has previously taught in matters of faith and morals, whether by the Pope ex cathedra, or in the definitions of an Ecumenical Council, or in the ordinary universal magisterium of the Bishops dispersed throughout the world (cf. Lumen Gentium 25)?
  2. Is it possible that in some circumstances a pastor could bless unions between homosexual persons, thus suggesting that homosexual behavior as such would not be contrary to God’s law and the person’s journey toward God? Linked to this dubium is the need to raise another: does the teaching upheld by the universal ordinary magisterium, that every sexual act outside of marriage, and in particular homosexual acts, constitutes an objectively grave sin against God’s law, regardless of the circumstances in which it takes place and the intention with which it is carried out, continue to be valid?
  3. Will the Synod of Bishops to be held in Rome, and which includes only a chosen representation of pastors and faithful, exercise, in the doctrinal or pastoral matters on which it will be called to express itself, the Supreme Authority of the Church, which belongs exclusively to the Roman Pontiff and, una cum capite suo, to the College of Bishops (cf. can. 336 C.I.C.)?
  4. Could the Church in the future have the faculty to confer priestly ordination on women, thus contradicting that the exclusive reservation of this sacrament to baptized males belongs to the very substance of the Sacrament of Orders, which the Church cannot change?
  5. Can a penitent who, while admitting a sin, refuses to make, in any way, the intention not to commit it again, validly receive sacramental absolution?

Original version of the Dubia, as submitted to the Pope July 10

1. Dubium about the claim that we should reinterpret Divine Revelation according to the cultural and anthropological changes in vogue.

After the statements of some Bishops, which have been neither corrected nor retracted, it is asked whether in the Church Divine Revelation should be reinterpreted according to the cultural changes of our time and according to the new anthropological vision that these changes promote; or whether Divine Revelation is binding forever, immutable and therefore not to be contradicted, according to the dictum of the Second Vatican Council, that to God who reveals is due “the obedience of faith” (Dei Verbum 5); that what is revealed for the salvation of all must remain “in their entirety, throughout the ages” and alive, and be “transmitted to all generations” (7); and that the progress of understanding does not imply any change in the truth of things and words, because faith has been “handed on…once and for all” (8), and the Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but teaches only what has been handed on (10).


2. [i]Dubium about the claim that the widespread practice of the blessing of same-sex unions would be in accord with Revelation and the Magisterium (CCC 2357).[/i]

According to Divine Revelation, confirmed in Sacred Scripture, which the Church “at the divine command with the help of the Holy Spirit,…listens to devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully” (Dei Verbum 10): “In the beginning” God created man in his own image, male and female he created them and blessed them, that they might be fruitful (cf. Gen. 1, 27-28), whereby the Apostle Paul teaches that to deny sexual difference is the consequence of the denial of the Creator (Rom 1, 24-32). It is asked: Can the Church derogate from this “principle,” considering it, contrary to what Veritatis Splendor 103 taught, as a mere ideal, and accepting as a “possible good” objectively sinful situations, such as same-sex unions, without betraying revealed doctrine?


3. [i]Dubium about the assertion that synodality is a “constitutive element of the Church” (Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis Communio 6), so that the Church would, by its very nature, be synodal.[/i]

Given that the Synod of Bishops does not represent the College of Bishops but is merely a consultative organ of the Pope, since the Bishops, as witnesses of the faith, cannot delegate their confession of the truth, it is asked whether synodality can be the supreme regulative criterion of the permanent government of the Church without distorting her constitutive order willed by her Founder, whereby the supreme and full authority of the Church is exercised both by the Pope by virtue of his office and by the College of Bishops together with its head the Roman Pontiff (Lumen Gentium 22).


4. Dubium about pastors’ and theologians’ support for the theory that “the theology of the Church has changed” and therefore that priestly ordination can be conferred on women.


After the statements of some prelates, which have been neither corrected nor retracted, according to which, with Vatican II, the theology of the Church and the meaning of the Mass has changed, it is asked whether the dictum of the Second Vatican Council is still valid, that “[the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood] differ essentially and not only in degree” (Lumen Gentium 10) and that presbyters by virtue of the “sacred power of Order, that of offering sacrifice and forgiving sins” (Presbyterorum Ordinis 2), act in the name and in the person of Christ the Mediator, through Whom the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful is made perfect. It is furthermore asked whether the teaching of St. John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which teaches as a truth to be definitively held the impossibility of conferring priestly ordination on women, is still valid, so that this teaching is no longer subject to change nor to the free discussion of pastors or theologians.


5. Dubium about the statement “forgiveness is a human right” and the Holy Father’s insistence on the duty to absolve everyone and always, so that repentance would not be a necessary condition for sacramental absolution.

It is asked whether the teaching of the Council of Trent, according to which the contrition of the penitent, which consists in detesting the sin committed with the intention of sinning no more (Session XIV, Chapter IV: DH 1676), is necessary for the validity of sacramental confession, is still in force, so that the priest must postpone absolution when it is clear that this condition is not fulfilled.

Vatican City, 10 July 2023

Walter Card. Brandmüller
Raymond Leo Card. Burke
Juan Card. Sandoval Íñiguez
Robert Card. Sarah
Joseph Card. Zen Ze-Kiun, S.D.B.


Second version of the Dubia submitted August 21
To his Holiness, Francis, Supreme Pontiff

Most Holy Father,

We are very grateful for the answers which You have kindly wished to offer us. We would first like to clarify that, if we have asked You these questions, it is not out of fear of dialogue with the people of our time, nor of the questions they could ask us about the Gospel of Christ. In fact, we, like Your Holiness, are convinced that the Gospel brings fullness to human life and responds to our every question. The concern that moves us is another: we are concerned to see that there are pastors who doubt the ability of the Gospel to transform the hearts of men and end up proposing to them no longer sound doctrine but “teachings according to their own likings” (cf. 2 Tim 4, 3). We are also concerned that it be understood that God’s mercy does not consist in covering our sins, but is much greater, in that it enables us to respond to His love by keeping His commandments, that is, to convert and believe in the Gospel (cf. Mk 1, 15).

With the same sincerity with which You have answered us, we must add that Your answers have not resolved the doubts we had raised, but have, if anything, deepened them. We therefore feel obliged to re-propose, reformulating them, these questions to Your Holiness, who as the successor of Peter is charged by the Lord to confirm Your brethren in the faith. This is all the more urgent in view of the upcoming Synod, which many want to use to deny Catholic doctrine on the very issues which our dubia concern. We therefore re-propose our questions to You, so that they can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.”

  1. Your Holiness insists that the Church can deepen its understanding of the deposit of faith. This is indeed what Dei Verbum 8 teaches and belongs to Catholic doctrine. Your response, however, does not capture our concern. Many Christians, including pastors and theologians, argue today that the cultural and anthropological changes of our time should push the Church to teach the opposite of what it has always taught. This concerns essential, not secondary, questions for our salvation, like the confession of faith, subjective conditions for access to the sacraments, and observance of the moral law. So we want to rephrase our dubium: is it possible for the Church today to teach doctrines contrary to those she has previously taught in matters of faith and morals, whether by the Pope ex cathedra, or in the definitions of an Ecumenical Council, or in the ordinary universal magisterium of the Bishops dispersed throughout the world (cf. Lumen Gentium 25)?

  2. Your Holiness has insisted on the fact that there can be no confusion between marriage and other types of unions of a sexual nature and that, therefore, any rite or sacramental blessing of same-sex couples, which would give rise to such confusion, should be avoided. Our concern, however, is a different one: we are concerned that the blessing of same-sex couples might create confusion in any case, not only in that it might make them seem analogous to marriage, but also in that homosexual acts would be presented practically as a good, or at least as the possible good that God asks of people in their journey toward Him. So let us rephrase our dubium: Is it possible that in some circumstances a pastor could bless unions between homosexual persons, thus suggesting that homosexual behavior as such would not be contrary to God’s law and the person’s journey toward God? Linked to this dubium is the need to raise another: does the teaching upheld by the universal ordinary magisterium, that every sexual act outside of marriage, and in particular homosexual acts, constitutes an objectively grave sin against God’s law, regardless of the circumstances in which it takes place and the intention with which it is carried out, continue to be valid?

  3. You have insisted that there is a synodal dimension to the Church, in that all, including the lay faithful, are called to participate and make their voices heard. Our difficulty, however, is another: today the future Synod on “synodality” is being presented as if, in communion with the Pope, it represents the Supreme Authority of the Church. However, the Synod of Bishops is a consultative body of the Pope; it does not represent the College of Bishops and cannot settle the issues dealt with in it nor issue decrees on them, unless, in certain cases, the Roman Pontiff, whose duty it is to ratify the decisions of the Synod, has expressly granted it deliberative power (cf. can. 343 C.I.C.). This is a decisive point inasmuch as not involving the College of Bishops in matters such as those that the next Synod intends to raise, which touch on the very constitution of the Church, would go precisely against the root of that synodality, which it claims to want to promote. Let us therefore rephrase our dubium: will the Synod of Bishops to be held in Rome, and which includes only a chosen representation of pastors and faithful, exercise, in the doctrinal or pastoral matters on which it will be called to express itself, the Supreme Authority of the Church, which belongs exclusively to the Roman Pontiff and, una cum capite suo, to the College of Bishops (cf. can. 336 C.I.C.)?

  4. In Your reply Your Holiness made it clear that the decision of St. John Paul II in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is to be held definitively, and rightly added that it is necessary to understand the priesthood, not in terms of power, but in terms of service, in order to understand correctly our Lord’s decision to reserve Holy Orders to men only. On the other hand, in the last point of Your response You added that the question can still be further explored. We are concerned that some may interpret this statement to mean that the matter has not yet been decided in a definitive manner. In fact, St. John Paul II affirms in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that this doctrine has been taught infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium, and therefore that it belongs to the deposit of faith. This was the response of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to a dubium raised about the apostolic letter, and this response was approved by John Paul II himself. We therefore must reformulate our dubium: could the Church in the future have the faculty to confer priestly ordination on women, thus contradicting that the exclusive reservation of this sacrament to baptized males belongs to the very substance of the Sacrament of Orders, which the Church cannot change?

  5. Finally, Your Holiness confirmed the teaching of the Council of Trent according to which the validity of sacramental absolution requires the sinner’s repentance, which includes the resolve not to sin again. And You invited us not to doubt God’s infinite mercy. We would like to reiterate that our question does not arise from doubting the greatness of God’s mercy, but, on the contrary, it arises from our awareness that this mercy is so great that we are able to convert to Him, to confess our guilt, and to live as He has taught us. In turn, some might interpret Your answer as meaning that merely approaching confession is a sufficient condition for receiving absolution, inasmuch as it could implicitly include confession of sins and repentance. We would therefore like to rephrase our dubium: Can a penitent who, while admitting a sin, refuses to make, in any way, the intention not to commit it again, validly receive sacramental absolution?

Vatican City, August 21, 2023

Walter Card. Brandmüller
Raymond Leo Card. Burke
Juan Card. Sandoval Íñiguez
Robert Card. Sarah
Joseph Card. Zen Ze-Kiun, S.D.B.



Letter addressed to the Catholic faithful regarding the Dubia
Notification to Christ’s Faithful (can. 212 § 3)

Regarding Dubia submitted to Pope Francis

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We, members of the Sacred College of Cardinals, in accord with the duty of all the faithful “to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church” (can. 212 § 3) and, above all, in accord with the responsibility of Cardinals “to assist the Roman Pontiff… individually… especially in the daily care of the universal Church” (can. 349), in view of various declarations of highly-placed Prelates, pertaining to the celebration of the next Synod of Bishops, that are openly contrary to the constant doctrine and discipline of the Church, and that have generated and continue to generate great confusion and the falling into error among the faithful and other persons of good will, have manifested our deepest concern to the Roman Pontiff.

By our letter of July 10, 2023, employing the proven practice of the submission of dubia [questions] to a superior to provide the superior the occasion to make clear, by his responsa [responses], the doctrine and discipline of the Church, we have submitted five dubia to Pope Francis, a copy of which is attached. By his letter of July 11, 2023, Pope Francis responded to our letter.

Having studied his letter which did not follow the practice of responsa ad dubia [responses to questions], we reformulated the dubia to elicit a clear response based on the perennial doctrine and discipline of the Church. By our letter of August 21, 2023, we submitted the reformulated dubia, a copy of which is attached, to the Roman Pontiff. Up to the present, we have not received a response to the reformulated dubia.

Given the gravity of the matter of the dubia, especially in view of the imminent session of the Synod of Bishops, we judge it our duty to inform you, the faithful (can. 212 § 3), so that you may not be subject to confusion, error, and discouragement but rather may pray for the universal Church and, in particular, the Roman Pontiff, that the Gospel may be taught ever more clearly and followed ever more faithfully.

Walter Card. Brandmüller
Raymond Leo Card. Burke
Juan Card. Sandoval Íñiguez
Robert Card. Sarah
Joseph Card. Zen Ze-Kiun, S.D.B.

Rome, October 2, 2023.

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  St. John Chrysostom on Purgatory
Posted by: Stone - 10-01-2023, 08:46 AM - Forum: Fathers of the Church - No Replies

St. John Chrysostom on Purgatory
Homilies of 1 Corinthians, Homily XLI, verse 42;
Homilies on Philippians, Homily III, verse 24.


TIA | September 30, 2023


Since the present day progressivist Popes, Prelates and theologians never reaffirm the Catholic doctrine on Purgatory, it is good to recall words from an early Church Father on the need to pray for the souls who suffer there.

Here St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) calls for Catholics to pray for the poor souls and to give alms to the poor on their behalf.


St. John Chrysostom


"Let us give them aid and remember them. For if the children of Job were purified by the sacrifice of their father (Job 1:5), why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation since God is wont to grant the petitions of those who ask for others. And this Paul signified saying 'that in a manifold Person your gift towards us bestowed by many may be acknowledged with thanksgiving on your behalf.' (2 Cor 1:11) Let us not, then, be weary in giving aid to the departed, both by offering on their behalf and obtaining prayers for them." (Homilies on 1 Corinthians)

* * *

"Let us weep for those who have died in their wealth, and did not from their wealth think of any solace for their souls, for those who had power to wash away their sins and did not will to do it. Let us weep for these in private and in public …

"Let us weep for these and let us offer them [the deceased] some assistance to the extent of our ability. Let us think of some assistance for them, small as it may be, yet let us somehow assist them. But how, and in what way? By praying for them and by entreating others to make prayers for them, by constantly giving to the poor on their behalf. …

"Not in vain was it decreed by the Apostles that remembrance should be made of the dead in the awesome Mysteries. They knew the great gain that resulted to them, the great benefit. For when the whole people stands with uplifted hands, a priestly assembly, and that great sacrificial Victim lies displayed, how shall we not prevail with God by our entreaties for them?

"And this we do for those who have departed in faith, even while the catechumens are not thought worthy even of this consolation, but are deprived of all means of help save one. And what is this? We may give to the poor on their behalf. This deed in a certain way refreshes them. For God wills that we should be mutually assisted." (Homilies on Philippians)

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